


Only Human

by BlackVitriol



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, kinda sad tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackVitriol/pseuds/BlackVitriol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After taking Audrey's phone but not being able to unlock it yet, Noah pays a visit to Gustavo and learns more about the loner artist. Alternate ending to episode 5, basically</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Human

Noah sighed as he dropped Audrey's phone in his lap. The latest password failed and he was locked out for a minute. He pondered the events of the day: the body, the gun, the shattered tablet and Audrey. She was hiding something, which was unnatural to say the least. Her secret was burning her from the inside and Noah was done asking her what the problem was. Whatever it was, he would have to figure it out on his own. His mind wandered back Gustavo. He looked so....scared. That cocky grin and easy going face faded when Audrey held his drawings up for everyone to see. Every hit Gustavo got, Noah felt a stab in his heart.

 _"Why"_ he asked himself.

He wondered where he could go. Not home, he wasn't ready to deal with questions. Not to Emma, not Audrey, not Zoe...the list of "not" kept going until he reached one he never considered. Pulling out of the parking lot, he headed to the only place he could think of.

 

So that's how Noah found himself in the Acosta household. Ringing the door, he waited patiently outside, while numerous voices in his head wanted him to leave instantly

"What are you doing here?" asked a voice, as the door opened a crack to show Gustavo's eyes glaring at him.

"I wanted to see how you were" said Noah timidly

"Why do you care? You're _her_  friend" said Gustavo, not even bothering to hide his dislike.

"I am. But I'm not going to ignore she did a shit thing okay?"

Gustavo opened the door. His walls were up as he sneered at Noah.

"So what now? You gonna apologize for her again?" scoffed Gustavo, eyes gleaming with unshed tears.

"No I'm not apologizing for her. I just wanted to see you okay? I was worried" confessed Noah, carefully getting closer. He looked terrible.

For a minute, he thought Gustavo was going to deck him in the throat. Instead, he turned on his heel and entered his house. Looking over his shoulder his eyes bore into Noah.

"Well?" he asked

 

 

Gustavo had a nice room, he thought. Lots of art decorated the walls and he would be lying if he said that he didn't feel a bit of envy for his talent.

"All of this was you?" asked Noah

"Yeah" said Gustavo, wincing as he tried to clean his cut.

"Here, let me" said Noah quickly. Gustavo's grip on the rubbing alcohol was firm but he allowed Noah to clean the leaking blood. If he had Noah's skin, the bruise would have been much more noticeable, but he always had that rich tan most paid a salon to get. Noah's eyes found Gustavo: there's was anger lurking there, but also sadness too. They sat in his bed, with Noah carefully cleaning the blood of his wound, trying his best to be gentle

"I um, I finished" said Noah, siting back from Gustavo as he finished putting a fresh bandage on the cut. He felt really...warm for some reason.

"Did you come here to play nurse?" snapped the other boy

"No. Yeah I came here because you got trashed pretty bad. I've been there and sometimes it's not the best to be alone....but I also had a question"

"About?"

"The drawings. Why us?"

 

The silence seemed to stretch for hours before Gustavo let out a sigh.

 

"I'm not the best at making friends. Even when I was little. I was just the weird kid with the horror fetish. I didn't care about it that much, because back then it was me, my dad and my mom. We're pretty happy, just the three of us" said Gustavo, his tone going from hesitant to loving as he mentioned his mother.

"My mom got cancer when I was 10. I was just starting to draw when she started treatments. She wanted to keep going. For me. For my dad. Even if she looked like death from all the chemicals she had pumped into her" said Gustavo.

"One day, she had to go in for a surgery. Debulking, when they though she was strong enough"

Noah could see where the story was going, but stayed silent.

"She was resting while dad had to go back to work so it was only me and her for a few hours. I was just sketching her, trying to draw the real her. Not the woman dying next to me, but my mother. She turned next to me and gave me this smile. And it didn't stop. For 10 minutes we stared at each other until I noticed the monitor flatlined. She died right in front of me"

Gustavo let out a hollow, pained laugh and didn't look at Noah.

"...So the right thing to do was to scream. Yell for help. For the doctors. They had to fix her, make her healthy and everything. I stayed in that room, without saying a word until 3 hours later, a nurse realized what happened"

"Oh my god..." whispered Noah.

"I dealt with it by drawing. Anything. Everything. Especially nightmares. When it's done, I delete it and it doesn't bother me again" explained Gustavo.

"I'm fucking scared okay? It's damn selfish that I'm thinking of myself, but I'm scared I'm going to be slaughtered next. I don't want to die, but that's all I can think about. Nina, Tyler, Hudson...they're nothing more than corpses and names now" shivered Gustavo.

"You don't think I'm scared too? I'm friends with Emma. I could go down any minute when the new killer feels like it. I cope with the podcast. By making everything feel like a puzzle so I can fix it. But I can't fix Brooke. I can't fix Will. I can't fix the fact that Emma had a murderous older half sister" said Noah. He didn't know when it happened, but his hand found Gustavo's and held on to it.

"So you don't think it's...creepy? That I'm...creepy" asked Gustavo.

"You're not hurting me. Do I feel insulted that I think you drew me with a bigger nose than I actually have? Maybe"

Gustavo chuckled weakly at the joke. He looked so much more handsome when he smiled, thought Noah.

Their moment was ruined as they heard a car pulling in the driveway.

"I should go" said Noah, standing up. Regretfully, he pulled away from Gustavo. Maybe he was imagining it, but he felt as if Gustavo didn't want to let go of his hand. Nodding again, he looked at Gustavo as he walked to his door.

"Thank you for telling me" he said quietly

"Yeah" said Gustavo sheepishly

"You can count on me okay? Strength in numbers or whatnot" said Noah, leaning on the door frame.

"You say that like we're friends" pointed out Gustavo, eyebrow raised.

"We are. As of now. I'm making t-shirts and everything" grinned Noah.

"Get out of here Foster" smirked Gustavo playfully

"I'll text you" said Noah, offering his best smile to him and closing the door.

 

 

He made his way back to his car, after a brief conversation with Sheriff Acosta on why he was in his house. Mostly, the sheriff didn't want anyone going near his son after today's events and Noah couldn't blame him. In his position, he might have placed barbed wire around the house to keep everyone from Gustavo.

Something clicked in his head and he scrambled for Audrey's phone, one last attempt to open it. To his relief, the phone unlocked. Sitting in his car, he looked at the messages hurriedly. She was getting increasingly disturbing messages and, as he clicked on a gif from the mysterious number, he felt a cold fire burn his blood as he saw Audrey, in all black, kneeling towards Jake's mangled corpse.

 

 

He dropped the phone, his mind adjusting to the shock.

 

 

And then he saw red.


End file.
